Administration of Torture is a powerful account of the devastating effects of deviating from longstanding legal prohibitions on the mistreatment of prisoners. Through government documents, Jaffer and Singh bring to light the grim reality of the torture and abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody abroad. This book shall serve as a historic reminder of the dangers of curtailing human rights protections in the name of national security. It is a clarion call for the world to reaffirm its commitment to these protections and the rule of law.

The issues raised in this extraordinary book are too fundamental to be left unaddressed. The years ahead will continue to test our security, and we will again be tempted to violate our values in the mistaken belief that we will be made more secure by doing so. Jaffer and Singh remind us that when that test comes again, we must find the courage to defend our principles more firmly. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this message.

"After the Second World War, the United States played a leading role in developing the rules that govern the conduct of states during times of peace and war. Simply by letting the facts speak for themselves, Jaffer and Singh show how far the country has strayed from that tradition. They go on to present a compelling case for rebuilding what the Bush administration has torn down."

In gathering these truly telling documents relating to the Bush/Cheney Administration's horrifying uses of torture, Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh have distilled the essence of an evil that has shamed America. Exposing it can only help remove a terrible national stain.

Jameel Jaffer, Amrit Singh and their colleagues at ACLU deserve congratulations on two counts: first for their assiduous use of the Freedom of Information Act that brought the documents in this shocking dossier to light, and second for making it easily accessible here. Introduced by their lucid commentary, this book will be an essential source for historians of one of the darkest episodes in American history, long after the "war on terror" and the abusive policies that it spawned have become distant memories.

This is an extraordinary book. The documents that the ACLU has been able to wrest from government control are harrowing, and the authors' treatment of them is judicious, meticulously researched, and ultimately damning. For more than three years now, we've heard over and over that the abuses at Abu Ghraib took place despite the Bush administration's policies, not because of them. As Jaffer and Singh show, that claim could not be further from the truth.